“Most people don’t have a good understanding of trauma. All they know is that it’s a bad thing that they have tried to avoid as much as possible. But even with the best efforts to stay clear of collisions in life, sometimes trauma is as unavoidable as encountering the night.”- Christa Black Gifford
In Chapter 2 (“Managing Trauma”) of Heart Made Whole, Christa Black Gifford tackles the subject of trauma. First, Christa cautions that material substances only do a “temporary job of numbing a heart screaming in unfathomable agony.” Next, Ms. Gifford lists several characteristics of traumas. Traumas:
- consist of wounds left inside our hearts that keep us from living in wholeness
- barricade us from growth
- slow down our maturity
- keep the broken fragments of our hearts from healing
- hook part of the heart and keep it stuck in the past
- perpetuate pain and fear
Therefore, embedded pain monsters create a shaky foundation of hopelessness, rather than a sure foundation of wholeness. Satan knows that when pain lives inside of your heart long enough, it ends up controlling and ruining the abundant life God intended for you. Hence, the author plainly defines trauma as any place in your heart where your pain stays greater than your joy. As a result, even those people who experience success on a regular basis endure traumas at some point. For they live in close proximity to wounded people.
However, most of us have no idea how to repair our traumas when part of our heart remains structurally damaged.
Today’s question: What Bible verses help you gain understanding of the traumas in your life? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Place of thriving or existence of surviving”
